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Having recently bought my first home I find there's an interesting split between people who buy cheap to move on within a few months/years and those that aim high to get the place they want right from the start.

How long did you spend in your first property? Has anyone moved on to their second and regretted leaving the first? I'd be interested to hear everyone's stories.

The first home we bought, we lived in for nearly forty years, apart from eight years 2004-2011 living in Spain. We sold it last year and never regretted it, because we love our bungalow so much

Last edited by seven-day-weekend; 13-10-2016 at 4:53 PM.

To love someone is to learn the song in their heart and to sing it to them when they have forgotten it'I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because I see everything by it': C.S. Lewis St. Augustine — 'In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.'

First house was small 3 bed detached (3 of us), lived in it initially for just over 2 years, moved overseas so rented it out, moved back after just over 3.5 years with 2 kids. DH's new job was about 60/70 miles away & house was too small so we sold & bought a 4 bed terraced closer to his job. Sold that after 4 years (& a 3rd child being born) & moved to a 5 bed semi 10 minutes walk away. We're still in that house 19 years later & 5 Beds has become 4 with an en-suite and back to 3 of us living in it.

I'd love to downsize but where I'd move to locally (for jobs) is more expensive & we don't want to start having a mortgage again & we've got 10/15 years before we can retire & move away to a less expensive area.

In a nutshell, it's extremely noisy in a 'people-noise' way. You can hear conversations, people moving around, etc, and it never stops. It basically sounds like I'm living with 3 or 4 other people who are probably perfectly nice, but I don't know them and they are constantly around, and as a major introvert, that really sets my nerves on edge.

I've done all I can to minimise the noise, but I've come to accept that it's just a fact of the building (it was empty back when I bought my flat, so I didn't notice anything amiss back then). I've lived in enough different places (including flats) over the years to know that I'm never going to settle in this place, so I've just decided to bite the bullet and go.

That's interesting. What was is about those homes you liked? For me it's the other way around; I've rented twice and didn't feel anything for either but the first time I bought I felt much better about it.

I don't know about whether you'd have any recourse but it'd be worth looking into. Things have changed a lot since you bought with the recession, new rules for mortgages etc. If you're earning that much though you could just sell for whatever you can, cut your losses and not buy above a commercial property again.

5 years in 1st flat. 4 years in next house.
Moved back to Yorkshire from London, house didn't sell so had tenants in it for 3 years, then sold it. Lived in tiny rental house for 4 years during not selling it/letting it out - was meant to have been a six month stop gap whilst our house sold. Now live in our hopefully forever family house and have been here two and a half years

I got my 1st flat in 1997, a 1 bed flat and lived there till 2005 - it had a nice central location but was a bit dated (1980's build I think) and started attracting dubious tenants (I had a tenant dealing drugs from window of the ground floor flat below!) Decided to go with a new build 2 bed in 2005 and been there since. Location still very good, about 300 yards from the 1st flat. Probably been too long in this town (a very rural county town with not much going on) but anywhere more interesting will be way out of my price range.

We bought as boyfriend/girlfriend and are now married with 2 very young children. We have enough space here, but financially we are ready to move up a little. I don't see this as being our final move either but we're expecting to spend 10+ years in the next house.

Mummy to 2 little boys born in 2013 & 2015House on the market for 19 months ....SOLD!...complete!
Natalie

I bought my first house in July 2015. It's in the middle of a "new town", so the area is full of lots of greenery and wide, open spaces, no traffic lights in the whole town and a good network of pavements so I can walk anywhere without having to walk along noisy, busy roads.

The house itself is a 1965 ex council, 3 bedroom terrace measuring almost 1000 sq feet complete with downstairs toilet, utility room, walk in wardrobe in the main bedroom etc. It was rewired, had a new boiler, insulation etc within the last 8 years. I think it's a B rated house for efficiency. So for the two of us it ticks all the boxes and I don't plan on moving anywhere else in the UK. Best of all it only cost us £80k!

We haven't bought yet so maybe I shouldn't be answering, but my plan when we do buy (later 2017/early 2018 is the target) is to find somewhere that we could be happy in for 10+ years. We've got 2 kids already so we'll be looking for a family home rather than a typical starter home, and I've no interest in moving about every few years. I'm looking forward to finally feeling settled and getting some stability!

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